CLEVELAND, Ohio - Transcripts of secretly recorded FBI tapes released Thursday detail the profane racial rants of Mark Hazelwood, the former president of Browns owner Jimmy Haslam's family business, Pilot Flying J.

They also reveal Hazelwood's ridiculing of the Browns and Cleveland.

The recordings, a key part of the trial of Hazelwood and three subordinantes, captured an informal meeting of Hazelwood and Pilot Flying J sales staff, as they drank alcohol and watched football Oct. 25, 2012.

Some sales staff can be heard on the tapes mocking the racial make-up of Cleveland and Oakland, two liberal cities that had struggling football teams.

Hazelwood's attorney, Rusty Hardin, sought to keep the transcripts away from the jury, fearing they would prejudice the panel. He said in a document unsealed this week: "The discussions by Mr. Hazelwood and other Pilot employees in the transcripts make one's skin crawl.''

Haslam fired Hazelwood in May 2014, as soon as Haslam learned of the transcript, records show.

Haslam was not at the meeting. He has not been charged, and he has denied any knowledge of the defendants' scheme to defraud customers.

Federal prosecutors played the tapes in January during the federal fraud trial of the four former Pilot Flying J employees. They used the tapes to counter defense counsel's attempts to portray Hazelwood in a favorable light as an executive and as a person. Defense attorneys said the tapes were irrelevant.

U.S. District Judge Curtis Collier ordered the transcripts sealed, but he relented this week, nearly a month after a jury found Pilot Flying J's former president, Hazelwood, and two subordinates guilty of fraud-related charges. They are scheduled to be sentenced June 27.

Hazelwood, former vice president Scott Wombold and account representative Heather Jones were convicted in a fraud that fleeced trucking companies out of more than $56 million from 2008 through 2013. A fourth defendant, Karen Mann, was acquitted.

The guilty verdicts at the trial push the number of former Pilot Flying J sales people convicted to 17. Sales staff members withheld tens of thousands of dollars a month in agreed-upon rebates, according to trial testimony. The sales employees sought out companies that they believe could be duped, paying a fraction of what was owed to them, a move that gained greater commissions.

In an earlier statement, Pilot Flying J said, "We are very disturbed and appalled by the extremely offensive and deplorable comments.... This kind of behavior is reprehensible, not tolerated nor reflective of the guiding principles of Pilot Flying J.''

On the tapes, Hazelwood and others laughed and joked about the idea of the Browns going to the Super Bowl. They spent a long time making fun of the Browns' earth tone uniforms, according to the transcripts.